THE FAMILY WE CHOOSE

“Life is Partly What We Make It, and Partly What Is Made by The Friends We Choose” – Tennessee Williams

I am a firm believer in the old cliché “people come into your life for a reason or a season, yadda yadda.” Whether it’s by divine intervention or just happenstance, people come and go in and out of your life and no matter how long they stay, by the time the relationship has run its course there is almost always a lesson to be learned or something “gained”.  I’m starting to learn to appreciate that fact and to embrace those lessons or at least embrace the possibility of such a lesson.

Too often we look up one day and someone we considered a close friend isn’t there anymore. Nothing happened to signal the shift, no alarms or warnings went off to help you prepare or brace yourself. Something just happened…life just happened and one day they were there and the next they weren’t. Unfortunately sometimes when that happens we realize that maybe we didn’t appreciate that person/relationship the way you should have and now it’s over.

And we all know how awkward it can feel to try and “rekindle” a friendship after it’s been neglected for a long time, the whole time in the back of your mind trying to come up with a good explanation as to why you let the friendship fall to the waste side in the first place.

I feel very fortunate, blessed or lucky whichever word appeals to you most, to have a lot of people in my life whom I consider to be true friends…the kind that will tell you the things you don’t want to hear when you need to hear it. Or the kind of friend that feels more like family than anything else.  I have friends like that who I know are in my life for a reason, season AND a lifetime but I also know that sometimes I take them for granted and that puts me at risk of ruining or even losing those relationships. But that’s the upside of having a lifelong friend; it’s never too late to right my wrong…to be thankful for the reason or the season.  

~Cp